Being A Strong Woman: The Bella Swan Story
by jenniferalyce
Summary: Bella Swan is a strong woman. She's not average in weight, mind, sexuality or spirit and she won't accept anything less from the people in her life. She's fiercely independent and refuses help at almost every turn. What happens when love walks into her life? Will she recognize that it is okay to rely on another? Or will she run from the one man who will love her unconditionally?


"Bella Swan get your sweet ass in here right this minute!" Alice yelled from the other room. Alice is my best friend and roommate and while to another person this may have sounded like some sort of emergency, I could have bet a million dollars she'd be standing in her room in nothing but her underwear asking if her bra made her boobs look small.

"What is it, Alice?" I asked as I strolled in without much urgency at all.

"Does this bra make my tits look small?" She asked with her eyebrows knit together. Would you like to give me that million in cash or money order? I moved to stand behind her in the mirror.

"Mary Alice you know better than to ask me that question. You're a 32 D. Of course your boobs don't look small. You look proportionate because you're also five feet. Come on now, get yourself together woman." I answered with a slap on her ass for good measure. She let out a yelp and swatted at me with a smile on her face. Our friendship had always been like this-comfortable and open. We'd been friends since freshman year of college and we had all graduated about two years ago now. Alice, our roommate Rosalie and I had very few barriers between us, so walking around in our underwear was essentially a daily occurrence. "Don't start with me Bella, we can't all have a body like yours."

I rolled my eyes at her nonsense, "Listen babe, I'm built to be me, you're built to be you. Let's just love on it, alright?" I winked at her and began to walk out of the room as I heard a, "Love you, Bells." from behind me. I just turned and gave her a smile as I sashayed my way into the kitchen of our apartment.

I passed a mirror as I walked down our small hallway that connected the bedrooms to the living spaces and saw again how different Alice and I were. Alice could be described as a Tinkerbelle type figure. She's totally beautiful and has a short black pixie cut and had a petite, thin build. I, on the other hand, have long brown hair and brown eyes and I stand at about 5'6" with a size twelve build. (Fourteen if my Aunt Flo's in town, if you know what I mean.) I used to hate my curves, but when I started college I decided to own rather than bemoan them. No matter how many diets I tried, I just could not seem to change that pesky thing called bone structure. Go figure. Our other roommate, Rosalie, was what many might call "statuesque". Basically, she's a knockout. Long blonde hair with just the right about of curves. Truthfully, we were all beautiful, just in our own ways. However, from time to time each of us lost sight of that. It seemed today was Alice's turn which would make sense. Especially after the meeting with her mother which she'd had today.

She came out to the kitchen fully clothed while I started to make something for dinner. "I'm thinking sautéed chicken with green and red peppers and balsamic vinegar seasoned with paprika. Sound good?" I asked. I looked up and saw her shrug her shoulders indifferently. Alice loved peppers, and chicken. She especially loved paprika.

"Okay, what did the evil hag lady say this time." I asked, putting my knife down hard on the island while she sat on the stool in front of me.

"Oh, nothing. I swear. It's fine." Try again, Alice.

"Yeah, and I'm the fucking Queen of England." I deadpanned.

"She wanted to tell me that James is getting married, and was disappointed in me for letting the only man who is ever going to love me slip through my fingers."

I swear, I saw red. "You mean to tell me that she thinks the man spoke to you like a dog, smacked you around and cut you off from all of us for months is the only one who is going to love you? Is she fucking delusional?" I had to remind myself to keep the knife out of my hand, or I might have left to cut a bitch.

"Calm down momma bear, it's fine. I know she's wrong and I know he will never be good enough for me. I just want her to understand reality for once in my life."

Alice's mom had this really terrible habit of making everything out to be Alice's fault, including the breakup between her and James. She'd done it since we were kids, but Rosalie and I really thought that maybe, just maybe, she would see sense this one time. Guess not. Bitch Brandon struck again.

"I'm not even sad that he's getting married or moving on or anything. I'm angry that my mom can't see how far I've come. I'm even more angry that some unassuming woman is going to have to deal with him."

"Maybe she's an asshole too," I offered, "Assholes marry other assholes sometimes. It's why you didn't marry him- you're not an asshole."

She answered with a sound that was half-laugh and half-grunt. "But seriously, do you want dinner? I'll open a bottle of wine and we can just relax tonight."

"Yeah, that sounds really great actually. Where's Rose tonight anyway?"

"She's probably with Emmett, it is Wednesday after all." Rose and her longtime boyfriend Emmett have spent every Wednesday night together since sophomore year of college, a tradition they started when they realized that they barely had any time for one another between classes, work and extra-curricular activities. "I really love that they do that," I said, "it does kind of make them seem like an old married couple, but fuck if their relationship isn't better off because of it." Alice nodded her assent as she bit into the chicken. "Damn, Bells. This is great! It's not tangy or sweet or bland, maybe just bold? I don't know, but it's wonderful!"

I blushed slightly, "Thanks Ali. You know how I do."

"So what are your plans for this weekend? Jasper has a friend moving to town and he was wondering if he could stay here with us while he looks for a place."

Jasper is Alice's boyfriend of about six months. Alice, Rose and I had all been nursing beers at a pub down the street when Jasper walked in. He took one look at Alice and came straight for her. He looked he straight in the eye and said, "We're supposed to be together, you know that, right?" And while Rosalie and I were about to haul off on him for the worst pick-up line on the planet, Alice just sat there and nodded saying, "Damn straight we are." They've been inseparable ever since. It was the strangest thing, almost other worldly. But Alice has never been happier, and an even greater advantage- her mother can't stand him.

"Not that I mind, but why can't he just stay with Jasper?" I asked.

"Jasper's renovating his place right now, so his living room is in shambles. All he needs is a couch to sleep on and a shower. Is that alright?"

"You know me, Ali, totally flexible."

"Are you going for your morning run tomorrow?" She asked. I had taken up running on my last weight-loss attempt and even though I didn't end up losing that much weight, I found that I adored running. It was a fantastic way to kick-start my morning.

"Yep, probably around six in the morning, want me to wake you up?"

"Actually our mystery guest will be here around seven so if you could just let him in?"

"Sure, no big deal. I've got to get some work done, I'll be in my room if you need me."

Working in my room turned out to be completely counter-productive as there were too many things around with which to distract myself. I've been working on my latest book for the past six months, and my deadline is about two months away. Due to my natural habit of procrastination I'm no where near ready. So here I sit in Starbucks writing my novel, and once again I'm struck by how hipster this feels. However, I do work here part time, so my drinks are free. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. As I sat peeking my eyes up to people watch (Read: slightly judge.) I noticed a guy with black hair in dreadlocks and chocolate colored skin. _Laurent_. Ugh. _Take me away now, Lord._ I thought to myself as I ducked my head down to stare into the light of my laptop. _Don't see me. Don't see me. Don't see me. Don't-_ "Bella Swan. How nice to run into you." I heard above my head. The way he said the word "nice" made my skin crawl. Then again, most things Laurent said made my skin crawl.

Laurent and I had dated for about three months senior year of college. We met while I was working at the bookstore I had worked in to pay my bills. He was exceedingly charming, smart, but he had this annoying habit of being terrible in bed and entirely too demanding. It made it worse because he thought he was some kind of sex god who deserved cock worship or some shit. As. If. Also, he was a feeder. All he wanted to do was give me food and fatten me up or something. When I took up running and yoga, he reacted as if I was defecating on an altar of a god he prayed to. It was absurd. I finally just couldn't handle it anymore and told him to fuck off. It wasn't even like we were that serious. But he clearly thought we were and it took him a lot longer to get over the break up.

"What brings you here?" he asked. _I'm here to bake a cake, oh but you'd like that, wouldn't you?_

"Just doing some work." I replied, returning my attention to the screen in front of me. _Get the hint, just get the hint._

"You know, Bella, I think this is fate. Some sort of serendipitous moment." Ugh. Now, I'm a spiritual person. You could even call me a little bit of a hippie. A bad-ass, no-nonsense hippie- but a hippie none the less. I believed in fate and karma and love and all that shit. But I knew exactly where this was going and it was nowhere good. Laurent was such an operator, he didn't really _believe_ anything- he just used belief systems to get you to do what he wanted.

I grunted in response hoping to dissuade him. No such luck.

"You see, fate has brought us together again. Don't you think? Of course you do. Well, who are we to tempt the anger of fate? It would simply be bad karma." _Bullshit._

"Clearly." I deadpanned.

"So, I propose we get out of here. The night is still young, we could have a drink at my place."

Now, I've had guys try to pick me up before and "have a drink at my place" means, "crawl into my bed and have sex with me" and since I've already ridden that pony- no way would I call it a stallion- I'm thinking, fuck no.

"No, thank you. I really need to get some work done."

"Oh, come on. You know you want to. This event is practically written in the stars."

"Laurent Boyles you know just as well as I do that you don't actually believe in all this shit you're spewing, you're just saying it because I believe in it. I'm not going to your place for a drink and I am not continuing this conversation with you." I stated. I turned my face back to the screen and tried to ignore him. Something I had forgotten about Laurent, though, was that he didn't appreciate being ignored and he was completely unfamiliar with being told "no."

"Bella, let's be honest here. I'm the best chance you have of getting any in the near future." As he said this he gave me a once-over, and not in the good way.

That was below the belt. I could feel my face redden and damned myself for the visceral reactions I tended to have. I know I shouldn't care what he thought, especially since my standards had increased significantly since we'd been together, but I couldn't keep that part of me from wanting to run and hide at his comment.

"Don't you dare go there with me, Laurent. You and I both know what you like in a woman and I'm willing to bet that hasn't changed. Shuffle off now, asshole. You're taking up too much of my time." I said with a forced voice and even more forced calm expression. He threw me a nasty look and then finally shuffled away while mumbling something about "fat", "bitch" and "worthless". I tried not to let it bother me, but I could feel my eyes stinging with tears over his ignorance. I know he's not worth it, but it doesn't make it hurt any less.

While we were in the midst of our "discussion" we'd caught the attention of our neighboring patrons, all of whom were looking between the two of us with a fair amount of shock and some a bit of horror. I hoped it was because they were offended by the way he spoke to me, but you never know. Right as I thought that a man walked up to Laurent and stepped in front of him. Laurent's body was blocking most of the man's features but from what I could see he was tall with an athletic build and copper hair. I tried to eavesdrop but the man was speaking very quietly. I looked around and noticed that the rest of the world had gone back about their business, seemingly bored with whatever was happening in front of them. Laurent has never been particularly classy, so it should have been no surprise when I heard him say, "You don't know what you're talking about. She's not worth your trouble, man. She's just a fat piece of ass." Like I said, classy.

Before I really recognized what I was doing I was out of my seat and heading over toward their location. As I got closer I could see the man speaking to Laurent. He had tattoos on his forearms and muscles in all the appropriate places. His green eyes sparkled with anger and I couldn't help but wonder how they'd sparkle under more intimate circumstances. I placed my hand on Laurent's arm and dragged him out of the café. I was faintly aware of the man following us out, but I wasn't entirely sure why he was bothering to. I'd had just about enough of Laurent's bullshit and it was time for him to get lost. I hauled his worthless ass outside and said to him: "Listen up, asshat, because I'm only going to say this once. Leave me the fuck alone. I don't care what you think about me. We dated for, what, three months? Three years ago? You were a terrible boyfriend and even worse in bed. Don't flatter yourself with thinking that anything you said in there is going to affect me or my self-esteem in an long-reaching manner. Speaking of which, manners- you should learn some. Now get the fuck out of my sight. Go home and masturbate or something."

Laurent's face was of complete and utter shock. He'd never heard me speak to him that way and I doubt anyone else had ever dared to either. "I believe I heard her tell you to leave." I heard from behind me. The man. The perfect looking man. Of course his voice sounded like velvet, why wouldn't it? Perfect, just perfect.

"And you, what do you think you're doing? Do you think I need someone to take care of me? I don't. I'm perfectly fine. See?" I gestured to the empty space Laurent had left behind. He just stared at me, eyebrows a little bit raised. "Ugh. Whatever. I'm out of here." I went back inside to grab my belongings and left before I could embarrass myself any further in front of the mystery stranger perfect man thing.

Hi everyone! This is my first real story, please be kind. I'm in the market for a beta, anyone know anyone who knows someone?


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